If one of your New Years resolutions is to increase the space between you and strangers in public settings, a piece of futuristic clothing dubbed Spider Dress is about to make all your 2015 dreams come true.

A dress that responds aggressively when another person approaches too close is being showcased at this weeks CES. The Intel Edison is the force behind this remarkable wearable design.

The Spider Dress and another called Synapse which detects the wearers stress are the creations of designer and electronic wearables artist, Anouk Wipprecht.

Both of these mechatronic dresses use the Intel Edison chip to respond to biosignals that trigger actions to defend the wearer’s personal space.

In the case of the Spider mechanical arms extend and retract as a response to external stimuli and as people approach, the wearer’s own breath will help to signal the defense posture of the robotic arms.

The speed of the approach also modulates the defensive behavior. When someone approaches quickly and the arms will aggressively posture, but if they approach in a leisurely fashion the arms will be more welcoming.

This is the second of Anouk Wipprechts creations to integrate Edison although we suspect her work with it is far from done.

Connecting raw data driven in real time by wireless bio signals was never before that accessible for me, since the micro controllers that I used were either low in processing power or big and bulky. This means they are hard to integrate into fashion she said of her first Edison design, the Synapse dress -Edison allows me to integrate a super small piece of technology which can quickly compute complicated sets of signals, on-board storage and interconnect wirelessly to a lot of input data at once in a more advanced and intelligent way, to run my designs.

Still curious? Watch this video for more! And dont forget to keep in touch with Thingarage, your favorite source for 3Dprinting and crowdsourcing news!

Hey guys, today were here to announce you, officially the 3 design projects which have been selected as winners of PrintEat!, the first 3D modeling competition aimed at creating new shapes of pasta using 3D printing technologies! As you all know the creative contest has been commissioned to Thingarage by Barilla, the world’s leading pasta brand, and has been opened for two months to all modelers, 3D designers and architects who subscribed to the platform.

3D printing pasta? Seriously?

Goal of PrintEat was to revolutionize the concept of pasta, at least in the appearance in which we used to know. The designers hve been invited to join a creative effort to subvert the traditional patterns of production (extrusion and mold) by producing morphologies that can be accomplished only through 3D printing.

More than 530 international product designers from more than 20 countries have accepted the challenge, producing over 216 design concepts that have been submitted to a team of experts in charge of assessing the originality of the products. Countries with the highest number of active contestants were: Italy,United States, Netherlands, France and Germany.

Heres the winning list:

Rosa Pasta by Loris Tupin a French industrial designer from Maxilly sur Léman.

He uploaded a bio-dynamic 3D model, that starting from a bloom turns into a rose when you put it into boiling water;

Vortipa by Danilo Spiga and Luis Fraguarda, a product design team based in Cagliari, Italy.

They submitted a new concept of pasta based on the vortex pattern progression system that resembles a funny christmas tree;

Lune by Alessandro Carabini an Italian product designer working in collaborative Studio Abaco in Paris, France.

He uploaded a full moon with craters created to improve the interaction between pasta and sauces.

Crowdsourcing strikes again!

For these modelers, thingarage allocated three cash awards totaling €2,400, plus the opportunity for designers to be interviewed directly on the blog site.

“We were thrilled to see the enthusiasm with which the contest was greeted by the designer community, which is not used to dealing with food,” said Michela Petronio, Research Vice President at the Barilla Group. “There are several steps that must be taken on the 3D project but whatever the future of pasta, Barilla is going to be there.”

Making a product with the most advanced techniques of digital fabrication and 3D printing said Antonello Balestrieri, CEO of Thingarage means to overcome the limitations of industrial production in a smart way. I am extremely glad for the results of this competition: our design community interpreted this ambitious challenge in the best way, creating innovative products that paved the way for a new type of sustainable production and consumption. I believe that “PrintEat” effort showed us the limitless potential of crowdsourcing and that the field of Food Design is the one that can benefit the most from this process”.

Keep following thingarage blog to stay updated on the latest news on crowdsourcing and 3D printing! And join our contests to become the most popular designer of the community! Keep in touch!

This year, innovative technologies like 3D printing are playing a role in creating a unique and interactive holiday experience at the White House. In October, the White Houseannounced the 3D Printed Ornament Challenge in partnership with the Smithsonian. Makers, innovators and students around the country, from New Hampshire and Texas to California and Michigan, submitted more than 300 creative, whimsical and beautiful winter-inspired designs. Twenty innovative designs were chosen as finalists and five of these designs were selected for display in the White House.

Crowdsourcing ornaments for Mr. President!

The 3D Printed Ornament Challenge builds on the White House’s interest in spurring innovation and creativity through making. In July, at the first-ever White House Maker Faire, President Obama explained that Today’s D.I.Y. is tomorrow’s Made in America. To support the future of American innovation, the Administration is also working to create more opportunities for students to engage in hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects. This will allow makers to turn their creativity into products while continuing to develop advanced manufacturing capabilities domestically.

Not just the White House!

The 3D printing allows individuals to quickly, easily and inexpensively prototype their ideas, solve pressing problems, and positively impact the health, biomedical, food, fashion, and other industries. And federal agencies are also harnessing the power of 3D technology:

The Smithsonian is using 3D to digitize iconic objects in its collection and created the bust of President Obama based on a 3D scan of the President, which is currently on display in the Commons gallery of the Smithsonian Castle through December 31, 2014.
The National Institutes of Health launched the 3D Print Exchange, where individuals can freely upload or download scientific 3D printable models (using speccy or any other app) for research and education (Read our post on this subject here).

Watch the clip!

NASA recently announced it used Zero-G, a 3D printer designed to be used in a zero gravity environment to 3D print an object in space for the first time (Read our post on this subject here). The ornaments on display in this blogpost were 3D printed and are currently on display in the White House.

These designs will be featured in the Smithsonian’s state-of-the-art 3D data platform, and will join the small collection of White House ornaments in the Political History divisionofthe Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

No this is not a joke! We are here to showcase another great opportunity to leave your mark and to show the world your talent: PrintEat! The contest opened today has a new challenging goal: creating the pasta 3D shape of the future!

Why PrintEat and what to create?

PrintEat is the definitive contest for 3D modelers who love food design!

Why? Because it enables them to get the best out of their creativity by producing new shapes of pasta that could be 3D printed directly at home or in your favorite restaurant!

Goal of PrintEat is, indeed, to revolutionize the concept of pasta, at least in the appearance in which we used to know!

The designers are invited to join a creative effort to subvert the traditional patterns of production (extrusion and mold) by producing morphologies that can be accomplished only through 3D printing!

Who promotes this contest?

The creative contest has been commissioned to Thingarage by a notorious international brand, leader in the field of food & beverages.

We can not tell you more than that..but if youre curious and you are interested in this competition, we warmly advice you to subscribe to thingarage, join the contest and download its toolkit!

Youll discover precious informations that will be surely useful to start creating!

How does this contest works and how to win?

Participation to this contest is free and open to all designers,3D artists, firms or groups of designers worldwide.

Every contestant is obliged to subscribe to thingarage website and complete his/her/its designer profile. Contestants that will not complete their profile within the deadline will be excluded.

As usual, each contestant has to upload at least one 3D model in the formats specified in the brief available here and one HD rendering. In addition to the rendering (required) Thingarage will also accept sketches and/or photos of the pre-prototype (jpg png).

The 3D model must be original, not copied or taken from other 3D modeling sites.

The fundamental aspects that will be considered evaluating all the contestants’ submissions will be: creativity (who dares, wins), simplicity (minimal is chic), a 3D print-ready model (no comment), on briefness, technical skills and presentation!

What can I win by participating?

This time the three winners will be awarded of 800€ [VAT included] for creating the 3D model.

The company sponsoring the contest also announced that other prizes could be assigned directly to designers who will produce interesting models.

The winning submissions will be decided directly by the company that promoted the contest on Thingarage.com. Their final decision will be unquestionable.

Closing this post, we give you a major tip: don’t waste time! Early submissions have more chances to receive feedbacks and comments from thingarage mentors! Don’t rush in when deadline approaches, upload as soon as you can!

So, hope to receive your revolutionary designs as soon as possible! See you soon on thin garage or on the twitter hashtag #PrintEat!